Five

Five

Jude

My first night in the hotel is restless. I can’t get comfortable and listening to the sounds of Brooklyn well into the night is hard. It reminds me of trying to sleep when we were kids and hearing Dad beat on Dominic so loudly that it seemed to drown out the sounds of the city.

I take a breath and try to center myself. My mind flashes back to that moment in the alley when I held Max in my hand. It had been a gamble, asking if he liked being controlled. I hadn’t expected him to respond so enthusiastically.

Fuck, if I keep lying here thinking about this, it’s going to lead to a road I’m not sure I want to go down.

Eventually, I just get up and make some coffee and watch the sunrise from the grimy window of my hotel room.

Just six more days. I can make it that long. Maybe I should try to find a hotel in a different area.

As I’m trying to think of where would be better, a knock sounds at the door. Even though I’m sure it’s most likely housekeeping, I check out the window anyway. I don’t like not knowing who I’m opening the door to.

Panic zips through me when I realize it’s Rowan on the other side. I love him more than I could ever say, but there’s a reason I’ve been avoiding him. How are you supposed to face someone you let go to jail for something that was barely a crime?

I take a deep breath then open the door.

“Hey,” Rowan says as he steps into my hotel room. His body’s strung tight again, like it was last night, so I glance away from him. I know he’d been doing better from what Dominic had texted me over the last few months. But it seems like my coming back to town has made it bad again.

Rowan waits until I close the door after him before saying, “We didn’t really get a chance to talk last night.”

“I was at the bar for two hours.” Even as I say it, I know it’s not what he means. That was just surface shit, getting to know Brigid and Anastasia. And apparently Max on a completely different scale.

Rowan ignores me. “I told Dominic to stop it with the pushing.”

“I don’t need you to do that.” I deserve Dominic’s glares and snide remarks. He practically raised me, and I ran away from him like an angsty teenager.

“I know that, but he doesn’t need to act like an asshole.”

“Isn’t that like a privilege of every oldest sibling?”

He smiles just a little, his eyes crinkling at the corners. But then he sobers, and I brace myself. I’m expecting an accusation, a demand to know how I could’ve lied like I did. Maybe even a punch for allowing it all to happen.

But he surprises me and says, “I’m going to ask you a question, and if you answer, I promise it’ll be the only one.”

I swallow, my throat so dry it clicks. It’s too fucking early to deal with this. But he’s been waiting a long time to see me face to face. I’m not going to run away again. Not from Rowan.

“Did you want it?” he asks, his voice soft and steady. “What you were doing with Grant, did you want that?”

My stomach bottoms out at the question. It kind of makes me wish he had stomped in here yelling or taken a swing at me. I’ve never actually talked about what happened with Grant with anyone.

Dominic grilled me about it when they first hauled Rowan away, but I never got into it with him. It only angered him further, but I didn’t know how I was supposed to talk about that.

But with Dad gone, I guess I don’t need to hide or lie about it anymore. And it’s obviously been weighing on Rowan. His eyes are haunted in a way they weren’t last night.

So I clear my throat. “No, I didn’t want it.”

It’s the first time I’ve ever said that out loud. And as soon as I say it, I feel like I should take it back. Like Grant can hear me from wherever he is, or maybe the earth will shake, and my father will crawl out of his coffin and kill me for telling the truth.

Both options scare the fuck out of me. And that pisses me off because I’m a grown man and shouldn’t be afraid of either one of them. But it’s not like I can just turn that switch off.

Rowan’s silent for a long minute after my confession. And to my horror, pity fills his eyes.  “Then why did you—”

“One question,” I cut him off. “That’s all we agreed to. You said you wouldn’t ask any more if I answered that one.”

“But I just—”

“Rowan, stop.” My jaw is clenched so tight, the words can barely make it out from between my teeth. I don’t have anything more to give him. I can’t imagine telling him the whole story, how it started, what happened between us, and Dad…

No, it’s better if I just push it away. It’s worked so far.

Rowan runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up in places. He looks like he didn’t get any more sleep than I did. “I just want to understand, Jude.”

“There’s nothing to understand, and there’s nothing more to talk about.” My arms are shaking, so I cross them in the hopes of hiding the weakness. I don’t want to be fifteen years old again. I don’t want to be trapped in that classroom, bent over the desk.

I take a breath and then another because the room is starting to spin. The crappy hotel bed is shifting out of focus, and instead I just see the locked classroom door, Grant looming over me.

“Jude?” My brother’s voice cuts through the fog in my head, forcing me to flash forward to the day he walked in when Grant was balls-deep inside me, and I was trying not to scream.

“Hey.” Rowan takes a step forward, reaching for my shoulder, but I move back. He frowns but doesn’t try to touch me again.

“I need to go meet up with a friend,” I finally say when the silence grows too thick. We both know it’s a lie, but Rowan doesn’t call me on it. He simply nods and exits the room the same way he came in.

I sit on the edge of my bed, my knee jerking up and down.

Fuck, I need a drink.

I grab my keys and hotel card and leave the building, heading into the first bar I see. I just need something to take the edge off. Something to wash away those images of Grant and the classroom.

But as soon as I step inside the bar promising freedom, I come face to face with Max.